In a scene familiar across the country, especially amid lockdown, Brendan Healy was enjoying a quiet evening drink in the park with friends as they caught the fading rays of the summer solstice sunshine.
But, in moments, the tranquility of Reading’s Forbury Gardens was shattered by violence – and Healy was among the bystanders who found themselves giving emergency first aid in a desperate attempt to save the victims.
A knifeman unleashed a horrific assault on victims in the Reading park, starting shortly before 7pm and lasting just minutes. It left three people dead and another three wounded in what is being treated as a terrorist incident.
It is a night Healy, 55, will never forget. “You’d think that when something like this happens there’d be shouting,” he told the Guardian. “I heard none of that. Someone said: ‘I think there’s been a bit of a fight.’ I walked around to get a view of what happened. The first thing I saw was a gentleman, who I believe was stabbed in the eye, his right eye. Somebody had taken their shirt off and he was holding it to his eye.
“I was transfixed by what I was seeing. I would guess he was in his 20s, but I couldn’t tell because he had someone’s shirt pressed against his eye. He was sat on a bench.”
As Healy, a software developer with two children, became aware of what had happened, the true scale of the tragedy emerged. “There were people prostrate on the grass,” he said, explaining that he did not actually see the moment the attacker struck.
“I thought I’d try to assist. There were three people lying on the grass. One man was surrounded by about five or six people, I couldn’t see him. Another was lying [nearby]. But I was trying to help the third guy.
“Somebody had called the ambulance service. Someone put the phone on speaker and I had to attempt to perform CPR on the man. I’ve never done that before so they were talking me through it.
“The ambulance first asked me to turn him over onto his back. A number of people helped.
“I gave him CPR but a younger guy came flying in and he said: ‘I can do this, I’m trained in CPR,’ so he took over. This guy clearly knew what he was doing. He attempted to resuscitate him.”
Thames Valley police said officers were at the scene five minutes after first being called. “There were then four people trying to revive the man I’d been attempting to help,” Healy said.
“I heard that three people died. I don’t feel like a hero. I was doing what any reasonable person would have done, and I don’t think I did a very good job. I was in a state of shock and a bit paralysed by what I’d seen.”
The attacker was arrested outside the job centre on Friar Street in Reading, a short distance from Forbury Gardens, according to a witness. Deliveroo driver Amir Hadyoon, 31, said he saw the alleged attacker being tackled by police.
“He had a very trim beard, not much on his cheeks, he was a young guy. He had like a black T-shirt or something on, he was on the ground, I couldn’t really see.”
Earlier on Saturday, a Black Lives Matter protest – which police confirmed was unrelated to the attack – was held at the park. Greg Wilton, a schoolteacher who had attended with friends from an anti-fascism group and stayed in the park afterwards, was also among the first to tend to the victims.
“We saw something happen on the far side of the park and two of my friends ran over; I followed,” Wilton told the Guardian. “My friend put the victims in the recovery position. Me and my friend went to one of the victims who was bleeding profusely from his ear. I ran to get my tote bag which I used to stem the bleeding.”
Hours later, and less than two miles from the scene of the stabbing, more than a dozen armed police officers raided a property in a block of flats around 11pm on Saturday where the suspect, Khairi Saadallah, is understood to have been staying.
Laurren Medford, who lives at the flats, said: “My boyfriend went out on the balcony to have a smoke and there was a sniper who said: ‘get back in now’. The gun had a laser thing on it. He’s [her boyfriend] never been so scared. We then heard [a sound] like a bomb go off and all the alarms were set off.”
Charlotte Mortimore, 28 and a mother of two, added: “I got the kids out of the flat. I saw them [officers] throw ‘flashbangs’.”
Adam, whose girlfriend and her children live in the block of flats, said Saadallah moved into the property about a year ago. He said he believed the suspect has mental health issues, and he had seen him on Saturday morning, hours before the attack: “He seemed his normal self, I just said hello.”
Kieran Vernon, 26, who said he knew the suspect as “K” because he could not pronounce his name, says he met the suspect a few weeks ago. “He was so normal, I never would have expected this … he’d just chat like a normal person, he wouldn’t beat around the bush,” Vernon said.
Back at the scene of the attack, with a helicopter buzzing overhead, floral tributes had been laid at the police perimeter lining the park, which is ordinarily popular with families. “Reading weeps,” one said.
